Buffalo Film History Series: Buffalo’s Vitascope Theatre + Edisonia Hall
Buffalo & Erie County Downtown Central Library
Watch the same films that screened at the Vitascope Theatre 130 years ago!
BIFF Offscreen: A Little History of Cinema Told in Small Objects
Buffalo & Erie County Downtown Central Library
Christina Corfield's A Little History of Cinema Told in Small Objects exhibition is presented alongside and in conversation with Buffalo’s Vitascope Theatre + Edisonia Hall exhibition. Both exhibitions open at the Downtown Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (on the 2nd floor adjacent to the Collections Gallery) on Thursday, September 3, 2026; run through the festival (w/ special events TBA!) and are on view through Monday, January 4, 2027 (open during The Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (B&ECPL) Downtown Central Library's regular hours of operation).
Special opening reception and presentation with exhibition curators Anna Scime + Queline Meadows on Thursday, September 3 from 5:30-7PM!
Cinema is often celebrated as a brand new invention that was "innovated" around 1895 and had never been seen before, but this is not entirely accurate.
The truth is a bit more complicated and involves many different kinds of technology which each contributed to the emergence of moving images at the end of the 19th century.
These technologies, which were developed throughout the century, and even a little before, show how different components of cinema came from different places, such as projection technologies, animated images, dramatic performance, traditions of storytelling, and technologies that produced more and more realistic images. Importantly, each of these technologies created a rich and exciting visual culture that helped make viewers in the late 19th century ready for the emergence of cinema. Going to the movies probably reminded many viewers of experiences they had with some of these earlier objects, which helped make movies one of the most popular entertainment forms ever developed.
Because each of these technological objects each contributed something different to cinema, they are collectively known as “pre-cinematic” devices. This display will show you just a few of the wonderful devices that helped cinema explode in public life.
Selected pieces include:
Peep boxes
Watercolor paper, ink, gouache, handmade marbled paper, book board, glue; 5”x7”x12” (expanded)
The peep box was a 3-D technology from the 1700s and 1800s that generated realistic optical depth effects. Early cinema goers would have been familiar with these entertainments as they were part of a rich and varied visual culture, especially in the late 1800s. Many peep boxes were sold as children’s entertainment (telling stories about faraway lands, or retelling fairytales or Bible stories). Some were also produced as souvenirs of prominent national-scale events like the opening of a world’s fair or the completion of a spectacular engineering projects(like a tunnel, canal or railroad).
For my re-imagined peep boxes, I didn’t want to visualize fictional or fantastical events and instead focused on contemporary scenes of political resistance, civil disobedience and pressing social and environmental issues.
Thaumatrope
Box and thaumatropes; 4x4”, Artist’s riso-printed book; 5x7”
The thaumatrope is a technology of visual illusion that emerged in the 1820s and was quickly transformed into a commercial educational toy for children to teach scientific principles of human vision. Many optical devices from the early and mid-1800s were popular as they helped explain to the public new science and technology that was rapidly emerging and effecting their lives. But they were also popular because their visual effects seemed magical and exciting. The “wonder disk” or “wonder turner” as it became known was operated by spinning a piece of card with images printed or drawn on each side. The action of spinning caused the brain to blur the images together, thereby producing a singular virtual image, a wonderful illusion. For my reimagined thaumatropes, I traced a history of women “computers” (women mathematicians who worked in groups to process complex equations), and highlighted a history of women in science and technology. The thaumatropes can be compared to modern day computers as both technologies use binary systems (1s and 0s in computers and two separate sides of a piece of card in thaumatropes) to work.
Phenakistoscope
Ready-made; Paper disks 7”W; viewing stick 8”L
This device (pronounced fena-kisto-scope) was one of the first to produce early animated or moving images. The phenakistoscope is often associated with the diverse visual technologies that preceded the emergence of cinema, and today we might think of the images it produces as GIFs from the 1800s (since they are looped animated scenes).
Along with the thaumatrope, the phenakistoscope was originally designed to demonstrate new scientific understandings of how human vision worked. It was designed to be held in one hand in front of a viewer’s face while they looked at the images via a mirror and through slits cut into the paper disk. Using their other hand, a viewer would spin the disk to make the images move.
Zoetrope
Ready-made; Drum on stand, 4x4x7”; image strips (x4) 1x6”
The zoetrope used the same technology as the phenakistoscope, but rather than a paper disk, the images were inserted into a drum that could be spun. This allowed multiple viewers to experience the animated images at the same time, making it a more social and shared experience (like the cinema), but viewers would still need to look at the images through the slits in the drum to experience the moving-image effects.
Comparisons to film strips can be made as both 1900s cinema and the zoetrope depended on a strip of individual images set in motion to create their “moving images” or “movies.”
Stereoscope Wood Viewer, 10x3x6”; two image cards 3x8”
The stereoscope worked similarly to the peep box in producing depth effects that made images feel 3D. Special photographs were produced that when viewed using the stereo viewer (which kept the images a specific distance from a viewer’s eyes) produced realistic-looking images in space. Each photograph taken was meant to be viewed by a specific eye – the right or the left – so each photograph was only minimally different.
This visual technology was extremely popular in the mid 1800s when it emerged and was used for lots of different purposes, including scientific expeditions to new landscapes, documenting illnesses so the images could be used to teach medical students, as well as its use for popular entertainment. The stereoscope is often associated with the visual technologies of cinema in its goal to produce realistic and spectacular visual effects.
Christina Corfield is an artist and media study professor at UB who has published her writing extensively and shown her artwork across the US and Europe. She makes work about the overlooked or forgotten histories of media we now use everyday, and she enjoys finding the surprising and sometimes strange similarities between old and contemporary technologies.
This exhibition is part of BIFF’s 20th anniversary programming and Buffalo Film History Series – celebrating 130 years of film production and cinematic exhibition in Buffalo, from the Vitascope to WNY’s current renaissance.
Buffalo International Film Festival (est. 2006) is a nonprofit organization that champions regional, national, and international films that push the limits of independent cinema – presenting quality films from around the world to Western New York residents and visitors. BIFF is committed to amplifying diverse voices and exhibiting cutting-edge programming in narrative, nonfiction and experimental film during the festival each October, and throughout the year. A proud supporter of local filmmaking and the arts; BIFF also offers workshops, seminars, industry panel discussions, and professional development opportunities, as well as an Offscreen series of art, music and performance.
Presented in partnership with The Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (B&ECPL) Downtown Central Library.
Many thanks to Rare Book Curator Heather Gring, Community Engagement Manager Hannah Quaintance, and the library staff for the exhibition support.
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